My Black country : a journey through country music's Black past, present and future / Alice Randall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Randall, Alice, 1959- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Country music--History and criticism.

Country music.

African Americans--Music--History and criticism.

African Americans.

African American country musicians--United States.

African American country musicians.

Country musicians--United States.

Country musicians.

African Americans--Music.

United States.

Genre:

Music criticism and reviews.

Country music.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 278 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Black Privilege Publishing/Atria Books hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Black Privilege Publishing/Atria, 2024.

Summary:

"It was at the age of three, sitting in the front seat of her father's car, that Alice Randall began to write her first country song: 'Daddy, don't go in that B-A-R.' To Randall, country music is a beating heart, shared communally with her family alive and gone, and the origin of a singular distinction she holds in American music history: the first Black woman to cowrite a #1 country hit, Trisha Yearwood's 'XXX's and OOO's.' Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries, who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and, sometimes, profound eccentricity. Now, in My Black Country, comes a celebration of country music as a genre with its original yet ever-evolving Black roots and flowers. Randall guides the reader with painstaking care as she revisits her own past marked by times of trial and triumph. Situating us in the present as country music goes through a fresh renaissance, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is both an earnest reclamation of the genre and a vibrant introduction for a new generation of listeners who appreciate the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture." -- Book jacket.

Contents:

Prelude: Back to the studio

1. What is Black country?

Portrait of a Black man playing an early American banjo

The birth of Black country

2. In a Motown cherry tree: learning to write hillbilly songs

The Supremes sing country at the Copacabana

Florence Joplin, erased foremother of Black country

3. D.C. daze: small towns (are smaller for girls)

Saved by Lil Hardin and The Johnny Cash Show

Close encounters with trippy hippy country

Domestic politics

Seeking the safety of foreign soil in a small southern town called D.C.

Dixie gothic

Roberta Flack and audacious Black country love

Swamp Dogg, essential Black country eccentricity

1976 bicentennial year Black country

4. Encountering: the first family of Black country and other allies

5. Scaling music row citadel: screaming like a banshee in Belle Meade

Dressing for success at the uniquely quiet Bluebird Caf̌

Charley Pride at a black-tie banquet in a Nashville ballroom

Making a power move at the weenie roast

In the Ryman with Roy Orbison and a chicken dressed up like Johnny Cash

The Fairfield Four, Black gospel at the Ryman, and hallelujah, my first cut!

Kossi Gardner, unheralded Black country genius with funeral-organ roots

Unpacking Opryland (theme park, hotel, stage) cultural war zone

Midsummer's first hit, the last days of DeFord Bailey, and other victories

6. Big dreams: big hits, big mistakes

Quincy Jones and The Cosmic Colored Cowboy

The capital of Black country, Los Angeles

The mayor of Black country, Ray Charles

Los Angeles Black gospel, a taproot of Black country

Herb Jeffries, the bronze buckaroo, rides, sings, and films Apple Valley

7. The second-best gift my bad mama gave me: Mother Dixie

The Wooten Brothers, the greatest Black country brother band of all time

Maya Angelou's country cameos

The Thing Called Love: a white country movie with Black country denouements

XXX's and OOO's

Unexpected consequences

8. Revived the rails: cowboys, Pullman porters, and soiled doves

California Zephyr, running with Lil from Bettie

Iowa: more trains, planes, and automobiles

Redemption remembered in the Black Northwest

Vindication, plain but not simple

The Pointers, the Panthers, the Barbary Coast

The Coast Starlight, riding a spine of the Pacific, to the City of Angels

A train whose name should be changed

Nat Love, cowboy, porter, memoirist

The original singing cowboys were Black

Fresh horses

Kansas City, Charley Pride, and baseball

Lil, the territory bands, and letting go

9. The archive and the academy: creating a new country canon

Lil Nas X enters the academy

Rissi Palmer enters the archive

Rhiannon Giddens, creator and curator

Allison Russell writes a cornerstone for the canon

10. Far yonder: beyond Motown and Music City

Linda Martell, a reckoning

Aretha Franklin, a benediction

Circling back, DeFord Bailey

A new Nashville now, Mickey Guyton

Circling back, Charley Pride

Circling back, Lil and the linchpins in a wild woman's town

Encore: a songbook performed in a wild woman's town.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781668018408

1668018403

9781668018415

1668018411

OCLC:

1412626692